


The Dark Cycles

by Silverheart



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Betrayal, Brainwashing, F/M, Gen, spirituality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverheart/pseuds/Silverheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One shots set during Clu's reign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is tied to my story "The Digital Frontier", but there's no need to read that (though I'd appreciate it if you would).

Rinzler had chased them to this final refuge, and now he has them. There is nowhere to run.

He reaches for his disks before he touches the door, but it slides open at his presence anyway. He turns his head to the side. That did not fit previously noted ISO patterns.

Irrelevant. ISOs do not form patterns, so analysis of previous actions may not provide any information on present behavior.

He steps inside and is greeted by a world of sweeping, elegant color, strange amid the Grid's starkness.

She built this place for them, a reminder of the old system and a refuge from the cares of the Grid.

Rinzler shakes his head. He hears the hum of his processes sharpen with his irritation and...he shakes his head again, and continues forward.

"Why did the lights come on?"

"I don't know, they just did!"

"Quiet!"

The attempt is irrelevant. He turns toward the three hiding ISOs and strikes three times. They are voxels before they lift their eyes to him.

He is done here. There will be other disturbances. He must return to Clu.

He does not. He moves through the vibrant structure, looking at every line and shape and color.

She jumped him as he came through the door, her look stern. "Late again, Tron." Her fingers run through his hair, making him giddy with anticipation. "You spend too much time caught up in your work."

He finds himself on the second level of the structure, staring at the bed.

Their bed...circuits are already glowing violet as they derezz their clothing, falling on top of each other...

He must...he must....he must return to Clu. He is done here.


	2. Pain

It's a doomed plan, but she can't ...she can't just abandon him to this.

Clu holds her arm too intimately and too rough as he maneuvers her through the halls of the Arena. There are no Games this millicycle. Maybe the halt had been called just for this...effort.

Clu isn't the program he'd been before. She wonders if this whole thing is a mercy to old friends or some heinous manipulation, like so many other things he's done. Or worse, some sick amusement.

They stop outside a glossy black door. Clu turns her to face him without gentleness. She refuses to show fear.

He smiles fondly down on her in an echo of better cycles and toys with an errant strand of her hair he has no right to touch. "Flynn kissed you, once."

"Cycles before you compiled, yes."

"He gave me the memory. But he knew, as I do, who you belong to." He dropped his hand to his side, contemplating her coldly. Clu's code is a corrupted, twisted thing, now, she's sure of it. "It would fit with his punishment, if I were to take you from him. He failed to see how Flynn and his ISOs marred the perfect system. He fought for our betrayer."

If he tried, she would derezz him or be derezzed herself trying. How could this be the same program who was their friend and comrade? She doesn't know. Clu's not the one she came for.

There's another program here who matters so much more.

Clu regards her for a picocycle longer then opens the door with a touch. He takes her arm roughly and shoves her inside the dim and featureless room.

Yori glances around the room and sees nothing. She turns toward Clu, scowling, prepared to yell. She'd surrendered on the condition that he take her to Tron immediately.

Clu merely looks back serenely.

The arms snake around her suddenly, one around her middle, the other across her chest. There is no give in the embrace. She can hear an awful damaged rumble in her ear, feel the masculine body pressed against hers. Hair brushes her cheek; no helmet.

The thumb that gently strokes her neck is the only indication of affection, and the gesture is barely there.

"Tron," she whispers, not wanting to turn. She's seen Rinzler before. But always with his face hidden. The red of those familiar circuits and the horrific misuse of his warrior grace had been bad enough. She's not sure she can handle his face.

Clu watches, amused and...something else. It flashes across his face too quickly to name. "You did ask to be taken to him."

The rumble sharpened and the grip tightened.

Clu chuckled. "A gift, old friend. I hope, Yori, you didn't have other plans for your runtime. However long it lasts. Rinzler isn't gentle in anything, not anymore." The door shuts in front of him, leaving her with her damaged counterpart.

She wants to drive her disk through Clu's body, hear his scream degrade.   
  
Rinzler- no, Tron, even now- doesn't release her. The rumbling doesn't go away, though its intensity dims. She hates the sound.

His lips brush her shoulder gently, curiously. She wonders if he remembers.

She shuts her eyes and takes as deep a breath as his embrace will let her. Then she turns her head to see his face. "Tron," she whispers again.

His face is much the same, though now there's a glowing red-orange overlay dominating his blue eyes. Jagged orange cracks mark his jawline. His face is stern and unmoving.

He rises to his full height and releases his grip just enough to let her turn to face him before resuming his nearly crushing hold.

She carefully strokes his arms. He may no longer be able to offer comfort, but that doesn't mean she can't. His eyes are so hard to read now. She strives to see their softening beneath the orange, but she swears it is there.

"I'm here, Tron. I came for you, like you came for me."

No reaction.

She shuts her eyes and rests her head at the base of his throat, where his symbol burns in the wrong color.

One hand moves to jerk her head up viciously. She doesn't fight it. His eyes narrow as they rove over her face.

His hands bury themselves in her hair, loosening the braid painfully. He crushes his mouth to hers in an ungentle kiss. She responds softly, weeping.

He is there, still, buried under Clu's repurposing. She will be here for what was left of him.

She will not let Clu take it all away.

 


	3. Guilt

Clu cannot stand the sight of Tron's face.

Thus the helmet. The designation change, too. The original name belongs so much to the old warrior, the old friend.

If asked, though none would, he'd say it was all because Tron was imperfect. That would be only partly true, and in the cycles when the hum of the growing perfection of the Grid is too much, when his hibernation is haunted by thoughts that are too like Flynn's, he knows it is nowhere near the truth.

The truth is guilt.

Rinzler is a tool, and an excellent one. Manipulating his coding had been an arduous process; Tron was not even in part one of Flynn's programs. Even now, Clu is not sure how much damage the rectification did, or how thorough the rewrite truly is. During those strange cycles, he thinks he should have derezzed him, should have ended any potential issues long before they could arise...should have had some form of mercy on one of the programs he had called friend, before Flynn had proven to be such an utter failure and Rinzler had to be created out of need.

To see Tron's now expressionless gaze when he gave Rinzler orders would be too much. They'd managed viral crises together. During the earliest cycles of what became Tron City, they'd been forced to fight back-to-back as Gridbugs consumed the structures around them. He had shared energy drinks with Tron after victory. They had worked together to build the Grid. And now Tron is this, a slouched and silent thing, constantly humming as evidence of severe damage, utterly obedient.

Worst of all, Clu knows that rectifying Tron, that necessary act, would have been something Flynn would do, had their positions been reversed. With all his code, he knows that.

Enough. These musings are something Flynn would do, and the Grid is not perfect yet. When it is, perhaps, he would follow these pointless data streams, but not before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clu's head is more interesting than I thought, and there's a lot going on there. He's one of the more pitiable villains I've encountered.


	4. John 15:13

_Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends._

Quorra stared at the words for a long time. "Flynn," she said. One hand went up to her ISO mark, hidden under her long gloves out of habit. "Aren't we...weren't they your friends?"

"Who's they, Q?"

She looked up to see the User smiling serenely at her from across the room, where he'd been meditating. His hair was getting more and more gray as the cycles went by, making him look less like Clu. "The ISOs," she said. A pause. "The basics, too. Tron, Shaddox...everyone." She didn't include herself in the list; she wasn't supposed to be a part of the equation.

"Of course they were my friends. Why are you asking such a silly question?"

His tone was one of amusement rather than scorn, but she still felt awful for asking. She lifted the book up. "Just...in here...and I know you can...Clu..." She shut up, frustrated by her silly babbling.

"Ah, the Gospel of John. It's a metaphor, Quorra, like all the other death metaphors you've read. Being kind and not selfish are what it really means. " He shut his eyes, chuckling before he returned to his meditation. "Knew I should have rezzed the Paine version."

She nodded and kept reading.

As it turned out, that verse wasn't a metaphor.

But she wouldn't ask that silly question again. She wouldn't. Not even in her deepest processes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't believe the 'Paine version' of the Bible is an actual thing; it's a reference to how Thomas Paine wanted to rid the Bible of all things objectionable for the ears of the children of his time. And rid it of all miracles, as well.


	5. Lux Cordis 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An AU for 'Identity', meant to provide an explanation for Lux and her reaction to Tron. This should be the first of a few in the same AU.

  
"Kobol wouldn't hurt me," Lux said, standing over her prisoner, "Kobol loves me."

The dark mirror of his helmet lifted, too proud for a captured and bound program. She could see her own face in it (distorted into ~~someone~~ ~~else~~ herself)

"Who are you trying to convince?" he asked. His voice was dark and heavy and obviously being filtered, though something in it said he'd be very _fun_ , if she were merely a Siren.

She ignored the press of useless coding and glared at him.

Who did he think he was? He'd _failed_. His little friend the Renegade was about to be delivered to Tesler, his memories gone, a bit led to slaughter. Kobol had won. Of course she loved him. He was a winner.

Lux reached up and pulled her disk from its port, activating its killing edge.

Of course she loved Kobol. He had found her in the streets, alone and weary, a Siren in a bad part of Argon, her memory corrupted. He had taken her in, given her energy, given her hope for a better life. Of course she loved him.

He had made her into a weapon, and used her as a lure. He had led her to enjoying the slaughter and enslavement of innocents, so like the MCP. (She hadn't become that then only because...)

Things grew hazy and she shook her head to clear it, only to find her bizarre reflection in the program's helmet.

Kobol didn't love her. And Beck would be repurposed, stripped of all the goodness and kindness she'd seen- traits that had persisted even with the loss of his disk.

"Stay still," she ordered. She could almost see the the furrow of the program's brow. He wouldn't want to trust her, but it was in his nature to trust her. (She was his counterpart.)

Lux curled over him, enjoying the closeness in the way Sirens did (and more), and severed his bonds.

"Go," she said, turning away because she had to or else be lost somehow. "Save him."

He rushed past her like a shadow.

(He should be bright.)

 


End file.
